


One Small Step Is All We Need

by erbor



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 20:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5429816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erbor/pseuds/erbor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a loud crack and Bilbo screams as if struck with hot iron. Thorin’s heart shrinks in his chest, cold with dread, and his eyes scan the base of the tree for a sign of the halfling amidst the circling wargs—but he finds none.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Small Step Is All We Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paranoid_fridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranoid_fridge/gifts).



> not gonna lie, I'm lowkey embarrassed about posting this because I had just over a day to write this thing that wants to be a fic and it shows. you deserve a lot better than this, considering what a shining beacon of ~~sin~~ light you are in the fandom, but alas, this is all I can offer you. I tried to make it plottier than your average retelling/slip-in, so with any luck you will still like it!

Bilbo remembers climbing up the maple tree, the one just down Bagshot Row, countless times as a child. It is an old and strong tree. Despite not having climbed it in many years, Bilbo can still recall the robustness of its branches under his tanned palms. Shire trees are tough. They may not seem it, but they are. The good earth where their roots are sunk provides everything they need and more, so there is no reason for them not to be. The tree Bilbo is trying to climb right now, however, isn’t.

Yet another branch cracks when he closes a hand around it, and Bilbo tosses it over his shoulder with sheer fright as he scrambles for a different one. There are wargs below him, snapping their jaws and slamming their bodies against the tree trunk, and all he can think of is how much he needs to get _away_ —as far away as possible and with no small amount of haste. He heaves himself onto a higher branch and hugs it, his nails digging into the dry wood, and he wishes that they won’t uproot the tree. But he should know by now that his prayers are seldom answered. The tree shudders under the vicious assault for another minute or so, and then begins to tip over with an ominous groan.

“Jump!” shouts Dori, taking a leap from their falling tree to the next. “Jump over!”

For a terrifying moment, Bilbo is sure that he won’t be able to make the jump. A part of him is sure that either the fall will kill him or the wargs waiting for someone to lose their footing will. He takes a breath and snaps closed that fragment of his mind, then claws at the bark as he clambers to his feet. His fingertips burn and he bets his mother’s tableware that there are splinters biting into his skin, beads of blood surging from the pinpricks, but he can waste no time seeing if he is right.

The jump takes a second, and then he is clutching at twigs and clothes that aren’t his, trying to find his balance and avoid plummeting into the dark maws of a warg. He lunges for the trunk and holds onto it, but then the world starts tipping over yet again. Bilbo shuts his eyes. He is sure he is going to be sick. Fíli yells something, and Kíli grabs him by the collar and yanks—

And Bilbo loses his footing.

* * *

“No! Bilbo, hang on!” cries Kíli. “Hang on!”

“Grab him!” Thorin orders him. “The tree’s going down!”

“Come on, Bilbo!” shouts Bofur.

Bilbo struggles to keep his grip on the branch that broke his fall. Thorin can hear his terrified whimpers even from two trees over, but he is not close enough to swing down and save him from a fatal drop this time. This time, he can only watch as the halfling’s arms grow tired and his fingers begin to lose purchase.

“I can’t— He’s—” Kíli gives a frustrated yell, as if his fury might bring Bilbo within his reach. “He’s too far!”

He swings again, both arms stretched out towards Bilbo and his legs hooked over a branch that creaks under his weight. The tree’s fall has become slowed by the one standing next to it, which refuses to be uprooted so easily. Thorin grits his teeth and hopes it will hold a little longer. Azog, who should be a rotting carcass but has decided death does not suit him, laughs from atop his pale warg. Thorin itches to get down and run him through with his blade. Instead, he twists around until he spots grey robes and a pointy hat.

“Gandalf!”

The wizard tears his gaze from the skies, his eyes meeting Thorin’s for a split second—and that’s when he knows that no help will come from him. Thorin’s blood boils. If Gandalf truly prefers to stay safe in his branch knowing that the halfling, someone whom the wizard has referred to as a friend on several occasions during their journey, is in mortal peril, then he is no better than an elf. Thorin stops himself short from cursing and spitting at him. Wizard or not, he disgusts Thorin right now. He bares his teeth at Gandalf and turns back around to take matters into his own hands. Resting one hand on Dwalin’s shoulder to steady himself, he rises to his feet.

There’s a loud crack and Bilbo screams as if struck with hot iron. Thorin’s heart shrinks in his chest, cold with dread, and his eyes scan the base of the tree for a sign of the halfling amidst the circling wargs—but he finds none. Looking back up to where he last saw Bilbo, he finds him dangling from the same branch, now cracked but still attached to the tree. The jostle startled a shriek out of him, but he hasn’t fallen yet. Still, Bilbo needs help, and Thorin is painfully aware of the fact that his small hands are now farther from Kíli’s grasping ones than before.

“Toss him a rope!” he shouts, but Kíli doesn’t have any rope in his rucksack. Fíli does, and Fíli has just found a spot for himself on the branch just below Gandalf. Perhaps Kíli can hold his bow out and Bilbo can grab it on the other end? Thorin isn’t sure the weapon is long enough, but they have to at least try. He only hopes the halfling isn’t paralysed by his fear and cooperates in his rescue.

The tree next to the one which Bilbo is still clinging to finally loses the fight and topples over, its branches like skeletal arms coming toward Thorin. He crouches back down and closes his arms around the nearest branch, his feet slipping and leaving him dangling almost like Bilbo is when the weight of two uprooted trees collides against the trunk of the one he is in. Unlike Bilbo, however, he has Dwalin to spit obscenities and haul him back up. His men are screaming the halfling’s name.

A flash of light, orange and searing, sails past his head and he ducks. _Burning arrowheads_ , he thinks, mind reeling, but the way Fíli yells in defiant triumph tells another story. Thorin turns around and sees Gandalf setting on fire several pinecones with his staff. The wizard’s expression is pinched with something Thorin knows all too well—a mixture of grief and determination that he has only seen in battlefields where one saw a dear one perish. With his heart in his throat, Thorin looks down. He can’t find Bilbo.

“Where is he?” he asks. “Where is the halfling?”

“He fell!” says Bofur, his voice quivering. He throws a pinecone at a warg’s paws to keep it from getting any closer to their tree, which rests by the edge of a cliff. If this one tips over as well, they are doomed. “We don’t know! He just— He fell!”

“Did the tree crush him?”

No one has an answer. He grabs the pinecone handed to him and hurls it at Azog with an inarticulate roar of anger, but the orc-chieftain is too far and the pinecone hits the ground a few feet before meeting its mark. The dead grass catches fire almost instantly, and the white beast Azog is riding takes a few steps back. Following Thorin’s example, the rest of the dwarves stop aiming at their foes and start setting on fire the dry vegetation surrounding their tree.

Nightfall blazes with the raging light of tall flames. Thorin lowers himself onto a branch that’s closer to the ground and tries not to think of the rising smoke, the mounting heat, the halfling lying somewhere down there who might still be alive and die because of their torching strategy rather than a warg’s fangs.

“You filth! Coward!” Thorin shouts at Azog. “Come and face me in a just way.”

Azog growls something, and gestures at his minions. Two of them climb off their wargs and begin making their way over, careful to keep some distance between them and the fire. The wargs still keep their distance, unwilling to get too close to the sweltering hotness. Thorin considers his options. Should he descend and search for the halfling? He would be risking his life for him yet again, but Thorin doesn’t even regard not coming to his aid as a choice.

He jumps down, landing hard on burnt wood and tumbling to the ground. The air is almost scorching; his body protest the sudden aridness. He tucks his nose into the crook of his elbow to keep the worst of the smoke out and sprints over to where he thinks Bilbo should be. One of the orcs intercepts him, but Thorin cuts him down in seconds, the dwarves cheering him on from behind. His eyes prickle from the inferno closing in on him, but he presses onwards until he catches a glimpse of a familiar figure.

One side of Bilbo’s body is caught under the trunk, leg and arm and some hip and shoulder, but it seems that a rock jutting from the ground kept the bole from crushing the halfling completely. Still, the fall might have killed him, or the lack of oxygen, or the strain or being pinned under such bulk. Thorin crouches down next to Bilbo and checks for a pulse. The halfling’s hand is limp in his, but there is a flutter under the skin of his wrist, butterfly wings batting against a north wind. Something inside Thorin uncoils—but just a little. They aren’t out of the storm yet.

“He lives?” asks Dwalin, who of course followed him down.

“Aye,” Thorin replies, and if his voice trembles then he can blame it on the dryness of his throat. “Help me free him.”

“If we lift it only to have it fall back on him—”

“We shall not,” Thorin interrupts him. “Now either help me free him or keep an eye out for the other orc.”

“Dealt with him already.” Dwalin crouches by him. “What do you need?”

“Óin.”

“Leaving the tree isn’t safe, you know. Just because we did it doesn’t mean the rest should as well.”

Thorin squints through the smoke at the tree. His companions are continuing to toss burning pinecones at the wargs and orcs, and despite what Dwlain said, some of them have climbed down and are throwing branches and stones at their foes. Amongst them is Dori, something for which Thorin is grateful.

“Dori, here!” Thorin signals him over. “Lend us your strength.”

“Certainly,” says the dwarf, kneeling by the trunk and sliding a hand under it. “On the count of three?”

Thorin nods. The three of them count to three and push up. For a moment, the trunk doesn’t budge more than a few inches and the heat becomes unbearable. Thorin’s hands dig into the scorched wood and he sets his jaw, determined not to let the tree fall back on top of Bilbo; the weight might kill him now. Dori snarls and gives a mighty shove, his great strength managing to shift the tree up and away—a good thing, considering that Bilbo chooses that moment to gasp in pain and open his eyes.

Thorin is so startled, so very glad that his halfling is alive and well and conscious, that he lets go of the tree and kneels. Dori and Dwalin give strangled curses as they set down the tree with a lot of huffing and puffing, but Thorin pays them no mind. His hands flutter over Bilbo but he isn’t sure what to do.

“My arm, it hurts. My leg too,” Bilbo says, his eyes wide and terrified. “Thorin, my leg—”

“Don’t move. You are hurt, but you shall recover.”

Bilbo whimpers, his good hand grasping air until it finds Thorin’s, but he makes no other movements beyond that. Compliant for once. Pity it took so much. Thorin dares a slight squeeze and Bilbo’s lower lip trembles. _Don’t cry, I beg you,_ Thorin thinks. There is a reason why hobbits stick to their warren-homes and comfortable lifestyles, and Thorin has always known it, but he wishes he weren’t reminded of it in such a harsh way.

“If you die,” says Thorin, “I shall be so very cross with you.”

“You always are.”

“Then give me a reason not to be.”

Bilbo’s lips curve into a semblance of a smile. Thorin lets go of his hand and unsheathes his sword, giving Dori a pointed look. The man nods and hunkers down beside Bilbo, running a hand through his curls and cooing at him as if he were a colicky babe. Dwalin stands by him and lazily spins his battle-axes, eyes fixed on the remaining orcs and their beasts. Azog sneers at Thorin from across the burning clearing, and Thorin finds it peculiar, how all of his worst experiences contain fire. Then he charges with a yell and the world becomes a blur of rage and noise.

* * *

When the eagles swoop down, Bilbo is sure they are neither sentient nor kind beings. After being hunted by a pack of wicked-wolves the size of ponies, why would his first reaction be to believe that a flock of raptors the size of fully-loaded carts isn’t out to hurt him? Had he any choice in the matter, he would stay far away from them—but he doesn’t have a choice, and he is lifted into the air alongside Dori before he can so much as squeak in protest.

Dori wraps his arms around him and shouts into his hear not to move or he might aggravate his wounds, but Bilbo isn’t feeling all that bad. Just a little sore. Well, very sore, but he is sure he didn’t break or sprain anything, which is a marvel. He suspects he will be walking within a day. After all, hobbits are a surprisingly hardy race.

“Where are they taking us?” Bilbo asks, but Dori is as clueless as he.

The eagles fly until the glittering dark of night gives way to the timid blush of dawn, carrying the dwarves—and hobbit and wizard—in their feathered backs and sharp talons. Bilbo does his best not to look down; he has never liked heights much and in light of recent events, he isn’t prone to changing his mind. He does make sure to take deep steadying breaths and not dwell on the fact that a tree almost crushing him kept a pack of wargs from eating him.

Dori is good at pretending he doesn’t notice his state of distress, and even better at making his special coddling seem like his typical fussing. Bilbo decides that he will brew him a nice pot of tea in the way of the Shire the moment he gets his hand on a decent blend.

The eagles leave them on a stone hill and depart just as magnificently as they arrived. Bilbo tries to get up and finds that his body protests the previous night’s activities more than he anticipated, so he just stays put and scans the group of dwarves for Thorin. He had looked regal and solemn the last time he saw him, Orcrist in hand and the light of the flames casting his face in deep shadows. The fallen tree kept him from witnessing the ensuing battle, but Bilbo doesn’t doubt that he got his fair share of wounds in it. Thorin is crass like that.

When he sees the eagle carrying Thorin set him down, Bilbo’s heart soars.

When Thorin fails to get up, his stomach drops.

* * *

Beorn’s lands are fertile and peaceful. Thorin is confined to a chair for the time being, but he finds agreeable what little he can glimpse through the windows. His company shares his opinion: Most of them have taken to spending their time outdoors, lying with the sheep under the sun or dipping their fingers into the hives to get a taste of the bees’ excellent honey.

For some reason, Bilbo has also been told not to exert himself despite being mostly fine. Surely an inflamed ankle and a hurting hip coupled with a mild headache and scattered scrapes aren’t enough to claim that someone needs rest. But Bilbo hasn’t complained, only asked that they at least let him sit in the veranda by the honeysuckles. Thorin has joined him a couple of times, but there is something odd about the way Bilbo’s eyes linger on him that makes him shy away from his presence.

He wonders what changed, and realises that he already knows the answer. Bilbo’s refusal to turn his back on them and make for Rivendell when he could have strikes Thorin to the very core, and the strings of his soul resonate with sweet music at the thought that someone who has no reason whatsoever to have faith in in him still would choose to do so. He runs his hands over the blanket draped over his legs, unaware of the soft smile on his face as he picks lint off the rough fabric. Of course the trust his people have placed in him means more to him than every single coin inside the Lonely Mountain, but there is something invigorating about having the complete trust of someone who not many months ago was nothing but a stranger. It is a rare gift, and Thorin intends to cherish it like the treasure it is.

“Lost in thought, I see.”

Thorin glares at Gandalf, his expression turning thunderous. “What do you want, wizard?”

“No more than to enquire after your health,” says Gandalf, sitting in the nearest chair. He looks smaller in it, though not as much as Thorin does. If there is one thing he finds disagreeable about Beorn’s home, it is how his furniture makes him feel like an insect. “Master Óin tells me you have decided to behave and not tear open anything that ought to stay closed.”

“Good health suits my needs,” Thorin snaps, almost growls, and ignores the way Gandalf’s eyebrows raise at his tone. He hasn’t forgotten how the wizard did nothing when Bilbo was dangling from a tree branch, and he will not forgive him so easily for it. “I wish to recover so we can be on our way once again.”

“And recover, you shall, if you continue to be such an exemplary patient.” Gandalf runs a hand over his grey locks, searching with the other for something in his robes. “My magic has done everything it could. Now we must let life run its course and do its job.”

“Is that why you didn’t interfere at the clearing? Because of some higher order?”

Gandalf’s hands still and he frowns. “Pardon?”

“Back at the clearing, when the halfling was about to lose his grip on the tree branch. You looked on as he fell to his doom and—”

“I had a plan, Master Oakenshield,” interrupts Gandalf, “whether you believe it or not.”

“I do, indeed, find that hard to believe.” Thorin crosses his arms, though carefully so as to not upset the wound in his chest. “Unless your plan involved sitting back, comfortable as you please, and letting us sort the situation by ourselves.”

“You forget that it was the eagles who carried us away from danger. They wouldn’t have showed up without being summoned.”

“The halfling could have died before they arrived! He had to fall for you to get involved.”

“I admit I may have overestimated Bilbo’s physical condition. Were he two decades lighter, he would have never fallen.”

Gandalf goes back to rummaging around his robes and finally pulls out his pipe and a small pouch of pipe-weed. He begins filling the clay bowl with tobacco, slowly and meticulously. Thorin is sure he is only taking his time to bother him, and he is succeeding. He uncrosses his arms and puts his hand on his lap, furling and unfurling them. Patience. Gandalf finishes with the tobacco and slips the pouch back under his robes, then lights his pipe and takes a puff.

“Bilbo used to be an excellent climber as a boy, you know,” the wizard continues, blowing a cloud of smoke. He gives a wry chuckle and bites the stem of his pipe. “I was counting on that but, ah! Sometimes this old fool forgets how time affects mortal creatures. I hope you will believe me when I say that I did not intend for Bilbo to get hurt at all, and that I will strive to keep him as safe as I can in the future.”

“Not as safe as you can,” Thorin says. “ _Safe_.”

“Not one living person that is honest can promise you that, Master Dwarf.”

“Then you will promise to keep an eye trained on him at all times and at the best of your ability.”

“I will, yes.” Gandalf taps his lower lip with his pipe, his vision turned inwards. “This quest may change Bilbo in ways I yet do not understand, and he would bear close watching if only because of that.”

“As long as you keep your word,” Thorin says. He doesn’t need to ask about what changes might come over Bilbo due to the quest. He has seen them in countless others along the years, and he hopes that none of those demons will plague Bilbo’s mind.

* * *

Bilbo goes inside after Gandalf leaves the house. It isn’t that he is avoiding the wizard, or that he wants to spend some time alone with Thorin, but if both things happen to take place when he chooses to get himself a honey cake and some milk, then one could say that he just has very good timing. Thorin doesn’t seem very happy when he steps into the room, which can only mean that whatever Gandalf said wasn’t something he wanted to hear. Still, the king nods in greeting when he notices Bilbo standing in the doorway, and Bilbo takes it as a sign that if Thorin is willing to be civil, then his presence isn’t unwelcome.

Playing with his neckerchief, Bilbo heads for the table with a bit of a limp and scrambles onto a chair. He struggles to lift the jug, but manages to pour himself a mug without spilling too much in the process, and then grabs a honey cake from the pile that Master Beorn left on the table for his guests. It is a wonder how there is still food in the house after three days. When they were in Bag End, it only took the dwarves a single dinner to empty his larder.

“How are you feeling?” Bilbo asks, lowering himself onto the chair.

“Fine,” Thorin says, which means he is probably aching all over but unwilling to admit it. “And you?”

“Oh, you know—hip’s bothering me, ankle’s throbbing.” Bilbo shrugs and takes a small bite of his cake. “But you already know I am a weak and fussy hobbit who can only complain about things, I expect.”

He risks a glance at Thorin, who looks befuddled. “Whatever made you think that?”

“I would think everything that has happened so far in our journey to be enough evidence.”

“I fear I am not following you.”

“What I’m saying is I’m of no use to you or your company, Thorin,” Bilbo tells him, quick and painless. It always hurts less when one says it. “Surely you have noticed how I have been nothing but a burden to you all from the very beginning. Moaning over forgotten handkerchiefs and getting everyone captured by trolls and getting lost in goblin-caves and falling off trees… Don’t deny it.”

“I do not,” Thorin says. He pauses, and then ploughs on, “But if usefulness were estimated based solely on victories and defeats, then you should know that you look upon a loser. If I have judged you harshly insofar, it is only because I did not wish for you to suffer the same grief that I have. But for every one of your misses, there has been a bullseye: You stopped complaining about handkerchiefs the moment Bofur gave you a piece of rag, you stalled the trolls long enough for the dawn to turn them to stone, you found your way out of the Misty Mountains and back to us by yourself, you survived a thirty-foot drop and being half-crushed to death with only a sore body and a slight limp—both of which are already fading. So while I don't deny that you have made mistakes, you have always managed to rise above them. To me, that is the fartherst thing from being of no use.”

Bilbo stares at Thorin, then gets off his chair and goes to where the dwarf is sitting. The height if the chair doesn’t allow for Bilbo to reach comfortably for one of Thorin’s hands, resting on his bare belly, so he settles for laying a hand on his knee.

“You are not a loser, Thorin Oakenshield,” he says. “You are many things, but a loser is not amongst them.”

“Did you hear anything of what I said after that?” Thorin asks, a wry smirk taking over his mouth for an instant and then it's gone. One hand moves down to settle on top of Bilbo’s. “You sound so sure, yet you know so little of who I am.”

“I can learn.” Bilbo smiles up at him, daring to rest his cheek on top of Thorin’s hand. “My father’s family are known for their thirst for knowledge, and my mother’s are infamous for their insatiable curiosity. If you are willing to talk, then I am willing to listen.”

Thorin doesn’t say anything for one long moment, just looks at Bilbo as if he were the most difficult puzzle he has ever come across. It makes Bilbo’s smile falter. He begins to wonder if he misread the signs, if Thorin isn’t reserved in matters of the heart but actually not interested in Bilbo like that. Then Thorin’s hand moves under his cheek, his calloused thumb sliding back and forth against his skin. A caress, uncertain at first, but growing bolder by the second. Bilbo leans into the touch and lets his eyelids close.

“The first thing you should know about me,” Thorin murmurs, “is that I am not fond of your falling from high places.”

Bilbo throws his head back and laughs. “Neither am I! But if it worries you so much, then I promise to stay close to the ground from now on. You will find that I am most amenable to the idea.”

Thorin hums, watching with near rapture as Bilbo entwines both of his hands over his knee and rests his chin on top of them. The king’s thumb traces his lips, and Bilbo kisses the rough pad just because he can. It earns him a small smile, almost resigned in its upward tug, as if Thorin knows that Bilbo will drive him mad and is actually looking forwards to it. Bilbo certainly is.


End file.
